


light carries on endlessly, even after death

by seaofangels



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 22:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaofangels/pseuds/seaofangels
Summary: They're back at the base. He's staring directly at her with no urgency to run away. Looking around, Diana finds there are no soldiers or evil scientists surrounding them. They're all alone.She has plenty of words to say to him.We should've gotten more time. I will protect your watch forever. I love you, too.Instead, she blurts out, "You're not real."Steve walks up to her, amused. "Does it matter? I'm here."---In which Steve comes back to Diana a few times in her dreams. Sort of.





	light carries on endlessly, even after death

They're back at the base. He's staring directly at her with no urgency to run away. Looking around, Diana finds there are no soldiers or evil scientists surrounding them. They're all alone.

She has plenty of words to say to him. _We should've gotten more time. I will protect your watch forever. I love you, too._

Instead, she blurts out, "You're not real."

Steve walks up to her, amused. "Does it matter? I'm here."

_Yes, it does matter because you're going to trick me. You will make me think you're still with me, but you're not. You're going to cause me to hope that somehow, you're alive._

"You're here," she echoes, melting at his touch once he cups her face. "You're here."

His eyes gleam as he says, "I'm so proud of you, Diana. The war is over."

Diana doesn't respond; her eyes are locked firmly upon him, fearing he'll vanish if she looks anywhere else. He stares back with the same intensity.

Steve clears his throat. "So, uh, how are you?"

"I think I've finally adjusted to Man's World, for the most part," she whispers. "Etta and the boys have been really helpful. The country's coming along. Maybe London isn't as hideous as I thought." 

"I'm glad you're holding up well," he replies. He starts stroking her hair carefully.

"I miss you, Steve," Diana cracks, tears starting to fall. "I was so focused on ending the war that the thought of losing you never crossed my mind. Then when I saw the plane explode – and then I heard you tell me –"

"Hey, hey now," he says with worry as she starts sobbing, "you're going to make me cry too."

She lets out a laugh before choking back her tears. 

After the war, she had frequent dreams and nightmares about him. Most of them were her imagining the future they talked about while dancing in the snow, like her hugging him from behind while he reads the newspaper or him dragging her to various restaurants to eat breakfast. The nightmares all involved him dying again. There was one dream in particular where she watched Ares torturing Steve while she cannot move to save him. Sometimes, her mind goes back to the night she invited him to her room at Veld – then she wakes up gasping feeling her heart beat rapidly and wetness down below.

This is the first dream she speaks to him after he died. It almost feels too real, as if Steve's spirit had come to visit her one last time for a closure.

He turns serious and says, "I meant every word I said."

"I know. I love you, too," she responds so softly and tenderly. 

She leans in and kisses him passionately, pulling herself closer and abandoning the space between them. Steve answers eagerly, running his fingers through her hair. 

It takes a while before they pull apart. 

Steve continues to stroke her hair. "It won't always hurt this much, angel. Have you heard of the saying that time heals wounds?"

"Yes, but I don't know whether to believe it," she replies. Diana thinks back to Themyscira where death rarely occurred thus not losing anybody. But when she was introduced to the Man's World, suddenly Antiope, innocent civilians, Steve – all gone in a short amount of time.

"It will get better, alright? There will be good days and bad days. You're strong enough to pull through the bad ones that eventually, they won't be as painful anymore," Steve assures her, smiling hopefully so she can believe him.

Diana doesn't know what to respond, so she pulls him into a hug, holding on and dreading the moment where she has to let go. She buries her face in his neck, feeling the warmth spreading to her body. Dare she hope that maybe, just maybe, this isn't not real? Perhaps it's actually him reaching out to her, her telling him the words she has wished to say before –

Jerking up, Diana wakes up. All alone.

~~~  
"Etta, do you think dreams have meanings?"

"That's a rather deep topic for a Monday morning. Here, have some tea."  
~~~

A year has passed, and her life continues to change. Diana still has dreams of Steve, although they weren't like the one she had when they were back at the base. No, this time they actually felt like a dream. Not real. Nonexistent. Forgotten.

Until.

This time, they're in her apartment, specifically her dim-lighted bedroom. She finds herself on her bed and leaning against the headboard. He just stands by next to her closed door, crossing his arms. Steve still wears his coat and German uniform as she is only in a nightgown.

"It's been awhile," she says. 

"It's been too long," he agrees. Diana scoots over on her bed, pulling over the covers, and patting the spot next to her. He flashes her a smile that warms her heart before accepting her invitation.

When Steve gets in bed, she stops sitting up and instead lays on top of him with her head on his chest. The Amazon princess looks for a heart beat but is left empty handed. She moves up, placing her head right under his neck and allows him to fully wrap his arms around her. 

She feels warm, safe. 

Diana thinks about what Steve said about what people do when there's no war. Eating breakfast, going to work, reading the paper, getting married and having kids. She expanded the list afterwards, and one of the things was this. 

It all feels too real again. So real, an uncomfortable feeling surges through her back.

She tries to secretly fidget beneath his arms, although it doesn't go unnoticed, causing Steve to be alarmed. She finally gets off of him, massaging her back to remove the discomfort.

"What's wrong?" Steve asks hastily, sitting up.

"Nothing, nothing. I just need to –" Diana pauses. Then, in one swift motion, she arches her back, resulting in a loud pop that echoes the room and scares the shit out of Steve. "Ah. All better."

"Oh my god," he gasps out, clutching his chest as if his heart was still beating.

"You think that was loud?" she challenges, moving back on top of him. "I twisted a robber's arm a little too much a few nights ago in an alley. I think I woke up the whole town."

"He had it coming," he replies, grinning. "Tell me more."

"About the robber?"

"Anything you want, angel."

And so she does. Diana tells him about founding out she could fly. She reveals how scared she was at first until she looked down and admire the view whether it was the city at night or the sea that reminded her of his eyes. Diana also explains more of herself, like the fact she wasn't actually made out of clay, – shocking, he said – Ares turns out to be her brother, and that she owns a plane back at Themyscira, much to his excitement. 

Diana has much more to say. She lets out an, "I love you" feeling herself slip away.

Before Steve responds, Diana's eyes abruptly open and is snapped back to reality.

~~~  
Diana only tells her dreams to Charlie after remembering he has ghosts. She doesn't tell him the specifics, just saying she sometimes sees Steve in her sleep.

"They don't really go away," he tells her, "they always come back somehow."

_Like the pain_ , she thinks.  
~~~

Diana made a promise to herself shortly after Steve was gone that she should never forget about him. He became all too important to her in a short yet meaningful amount of time. 

Yet, she only has his watch to remind herself of him.

When her dreams started to decline, and the unusually strange ones don't return, her fear became true. She has forgotten the sound of his voice and his laugh. She cannot picture his face at the top of her head, but she's certain she didn't forget about it. She then tried to search for the only photo of them back in Belgium over twenty years ago. 

However, when the Second World War started, she takes a break from the search.

But no matter how much she helps, whether it's by liberating concentration camps or hiding the Jews from getting sent there, they just keep dying.

When she needed him the most, he comes to her.

Diana doesn't know where they are now. She looks at him, and there's weight lifting up her chest as sees him for the first time in over twenty years.

"How bad is it, angel?"

The lost look in her eyes is the only answer she gives before Steve pulls her into his arms. She finally gives out, her cries echoing the wherever-the-hell-they're-at and her nose continuously running.

"I–I can't Steve," she barely says. "They're doing everything. Killing, raping, experimenting, torturing – making bombs that can wipe out the world!"

He shushes her with tears silently falling. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

This time, they don't encounter each other for long. One second, she's in Steve's arms, then she's suddenly back in the battlefield. Diana sees the soldiers shooting and bombing each other again. Then it flashes back to the concentration camps. She sees dead bodies piled up and then she looks down and sees a child –

"Diana! Diana!" she hears Etta shouting, shaking her profusely. "It's okay, it's just a dream! Diana!"

Her throat is hoarse from screaming. She feels dried and fresh tears on her face. Etta hugs her, murmuring comforting things as she just stares out the window, wondering why men could be so cruel.

~~~

Etta was the last one to die as the other guys died much sooner. She died the most peaceful way, too. It's the way Diana wanted it to be. After her funeral, Diana feels utterly exhausted, going back to her apartment, and isn't surprised when she opens her eyes and sees him.

"She's gone," Diana blurts out. 

"I know," Steve whispers, coming up to her and holding her in his arms. She still feels the fluttering in her chest even after over forty years after his death and fifteen years after last seeing him. "How's the world?"

"Technology is advancing," she says quietly, "America got a man on the moon."

"Nice," he replies as she feels him smiling. 

"For the most part," she says. "But there are still wars, mostly over power."

"And what about you? How are you?"

Diana hesitates. _I'm lonely now. I fear getting attached knowing they could die at any moment, like you. No matter who I am with, my heart always comes back to you._

"You lied to me," she says instead, "you said time heals wounds."

Steve pulls back, raising an eyebrow. "Well –"

"It's going to be fifty years soon, and not a day goes by I don't think of you."

"Diana –"

"Why do you just come and go like this?" Diana asks, suddenly furious. "I know this is more than just a dream, Steve. It's like your spirit is visiting me then leaves for years before coming back again – and it's just – why?"

He hesitates. "I can't tell you that."

"So you admit it? This is not a dream?"

"This is all in your head, Diana," he fires back. "I think you're forgetting that."

She stumbles, unable to find her words. 

When she wakes up, she feels like she lost him again.

~~~

Diana continues on with her life, moving places to places around Europe in order to limit suspicion about her anti-aging. She eventually finds a job she actually genuinely likes, and it's being an antiques dealer at the Louvre. Happening to be thousands of years old comes handy into knowing the artifacts. 

She doesn't wear her armor and use weaponry for a long time until she comes to Metropolis. 

When Superman sacrifices himself and Lois is mourning right in front of her, it brings back some stingy memories as the century mark is getting closer. And when Bruce Wayne, the definite meaning of an enigma, brings her the photograph, she gets hit with memories of how she became Wonder Woman and how she now fully accepts her role.

Then there's Steve. A new wound appears as she is reminded again of their almost. 

He arrives in her dreams that night. They're by the Seine, she realizes, close to the Louvre.

"You're back," Steve says with a crooked smile.

"No, you're back. I never left. All in my head, remember?"

His face falls. "Right."

She softens. "I got the photograph back, Steve, the real one. I have more than the watch now."

"You still have the watch?" Steve asks, surprised. Diana cannot contain her laughter.

"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

"It's just that it's so old," he jokes, grinning and shaking his head. "I don't think this goes with the latest fashion trend."

"Oh, stop it. I don't keep it for fashion, Steve, besides it stopped working for years!" Diana replies with the familiar flutter in her chest.

Then Steve walks up to her again and kisses her filled with desire and passion. Diana returns the favor, running her fingers through his hair as his slips down near her waist. She wants him closer and closer even though it didn't seem possible. However, she still tugs him down on the ground, causing him to groan low in his throat. She thinks the intensity between them is enough for the universe to explode.

Too bad it lasted too quick. Just like their time together.

Diana turns her lamp on and opens her nightstand to pull out his watch. She caresses it against her face again, imagining it's his hand before hiding it away and turning off the dim light. 

~~~

Eventually, the dreams stop. 

Diana stopped being lonely, too. She accepted Bruce's offer of joining the Justice League and for the first time, she can actually relate to the others, especially Clark. She forms a special bond between her new friends as they save the world together.

She thinks back on loved ones. The Amazons back at Themyscira, Etta and the guys as she was introduced to their world, some stopgap friends along the way, and now her superhero colleagues. 

It's a handful of people. Yet no one has come close to ever taking his place in her heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have that much background knowledge on Wonder Woman before watching it to be honest. When Steve exploded in the sky, I was in shock and in denial and thought 'wait what'. Then when he didn't come back, and that moment Diana was emailing Bruce 'thanks for bringing back to me' – dear lord, I felt so emotional. 
> 
> Originally, I was going to have Steve suddenly appear after the last dream, but the writing didn't felt right, so I just left him dead :p
> 
> Hopefully DC/WB won't though!


End file.
